


Let us Live in Peace

by Quirky_Lesbian_Pirate



Category: Black Sails
Genre: Angst, F/F, Hurt/Comfort, Romance, mentioned minor character death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-28
Updated: 2016-03-28
Packaged: 2018-05-29 16:06:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,263
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6383344
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Quirky_Lesbian_Pirate/pseuds/Quirky_Lesbian_Pirate
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Only fools truly believed that in a world of war, they could find peace within it. At least, that was what Eleanor Guthrie believed.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Let us Live in Peace

**Author's Note:**

  * In response to a prompt by [CaptainRivaini](https://archiveofourown.org/users/CaptainRivaini/pseuds/CaptainRivaini) in the [pirate_prompts_2016](https://archiveofourown.org/collections/pirate_prompts_2016) collection. 



> **Prompt:**
> 
> Eleanor caves and embraces the darkness that's always been inside of her. Max resists but ends up embracing her own darkness too. There is a significant difference between the two of them.
> 
> What I'm asking for is basically these two ruling Nassau, embracing their own dark thoughts and feelings and acknowledging that they still care for the other - even if it might lead to their death.

Only fools thought they could live in peace. Eleanor was almost certain of that. It must take a fool to believe that he, or she, could one day find a place in the world, their own private pocket of it, where they would not be affected by the harsh realities of the world that surrounded them. That there was somewhere adequate enough to hide. Some magical land where the dead, the dirt, and the flame couldn’t touch their skin. No such place existed, not even in the perfect English lands where people were able to live comfortably. It still touched them, even if they didn’t know it yet. 

Peace was an illusion. Any day a murderer could slaughter them, a war could be underway, or they could be betrayed by someone they held dear. She knew this all too well. She’d witnessed it, she’d felt it. She’d even felt moments where she thought perhaps she was wrong. That maybe there could be a time where she would be able to lay herself down to rest, where she would be able to sleep through the night without hearing screams that echoed through her skull. Without feeling the cold hands that seemed to grip her tight. 

Eleanor Guthrie had believed in that longer than most people, most likely, would have ever thought. It was always something in the back of her mind. She would adjust, she would adapt, and one day she would find a steady way of life. Just not by running off without warning with a lover, nor by letting the world around her burn, along with her opportunities, for a man whom she didn’t even fully trust. She fought for something both of those times. Held onto what she thought the endgame could be. Until the night her Father was killed.

That was when the illusion shattered. Even if she still continued to fight for what was her, and Flint’s, eventual goal, she saw the truth that day. She saw through the bullshit that had once clouded her vision. She was in war. Every day of her life, every second of her life, she was in war. There was no peace in war. No harmony. No way to truly have things remain good, or pure. She planned to legitimize her shop, of course, but in the back of her mind she knew that if Charles survived that encounter with Flint...that she would see to his death herself. 

She also knew that she would find no peace in that. Because there was no peace to be found within her. 

Then she was taken, put in chains, about to be tried for her crimes. 

Until he freed her. At that point she didn’t see peace, nor did she see a happy, prosperous future, she’d merely seen red. This was her one chance to finally seek revenge against Charles Vane. Because that was what was done in time of war. She crossed him, he crossed her, and now it was her turn to end him. Once, and for all. 

There was something inside her, always had been. Something cruel, and ugly, something that filled her with something so dark, and intoxicating, that she wanted to give in to it. Something that unleashed itself the night she had Charles Vane’s entire crew slaughtered, something that emerged the night she nearly killed Rackham’s entire crew. Whether her action was righteous or not, there was something inside her that fed on it. Something that caused a cold veil of blank fury to come over her. 

Eleanor had always resisted to the best of her ability, because she wasn’t her Father, nor did she ever want to be. Maybe even part of her thought, somehow, that sleeping with Woodes Rogers might have even confirmed that. Part of her thought perhaps her intentions were pure with who she wished to become, but another part of her? Perhaps that part knew what was to come. 

She didn't expedite Charles Vane’s execution out of pettiness, truly, she didn’t believe she did. It was the only move she knew to make. She hadn’t felt pleasure, not did she feel peace, nor did that dark part of her even rejoice. The act simply resulted in an emptiness. She felt so little. Perhaps it was because she felt so much. 

James Flint had started a war between the two of them. Once upon a time she had stood by his side. Once upon a time, they’d wished to fight for the same thing, a common goal. Once upon a time she’d even thrown her arms around him in joy...but none of that even mattered. Nor would it ever again. It wasn’t about emotion. It was about war. James Flint had to die to ensure that the law in Nassau survived. Once more, securing Nassau’s future, nor the death of Flint, would bring her any pleasure. Though, at that point, she was almost certain it would bring her no pain, either. 

Nassau was a mess when she’d arrived. Her Father hadn’t given a shit about it. It was her who had built any type of stabilized society there, it was her who had pushed Blackbeard off the island, it was her that had started any semblance of an organized society. Yet she was never appreciated it. Men like Hornigold, men like Blackbeard, even men like Flint, they could be looked back on with respect for what they’d done for the island. For what they’d done for piracy. Yet not her. She was only looked at with disgust, and distaste, and she really didn’t give a shit, she never had.  

But she saw through all of it to the truth. Saw the way the men, the women, the way they all looked at her. Knew even how they’d look at her after the death of Charles Vane. But that was alright. Because what Flint never understood, what so few understood; was that to lead Nassau you had to be a villain. A hero was incapable of doing it. A good man was incapable of doing it. What the people on that island had done, what they most likely would do, a good man, or woman, could never contain it. 

So many liked to tell the story of good men, of men feared but respected, of people who sacrificed for the land, but they truly never did shit for it. It was Eleanor who kept things orderly. It was Eleanor who ran Blackbeard off the island so they could have that order. It was Eleanor capable of doing whatever the fuck it took to ensure stability stayed in Nassau. She was the easily forgotten, the easily hated, she was the one who would have her death celebrated; and she was the only one capable of doing what actually fucking needed to be done.

Flint, Blackbeard, Charles, they all wanted whatever it was that suited them at the moment. At that moment? It was piracy. Just months prior, for Flint at least, it had been exactly what Eleanor fought for. 

She felt that thing swell up inside of her. Dark, and ugly, cruel, uncaring. She was sick of swallowing it down. Because Nassau needed a villain to run it.

-.-

Max saw the shift. Even the shift from the woman that she had met, to the woman who had stared at her after the death of her Father. The cold, dead, look in Eleanor Guthrie’s eyes. She hadn’t been furious, she hadn’t been sad, nor had she been ambitious. She was something else entirely. Something Max couldn’t anticipate, could hardly even speak to, could not reason with. Eleanor Guthrie had morphed before her very eyes. 

She only continued to change. The woman she saw then, and the woman she saw walk in surrounded by British soldiers was entirely different, as well. Different clothes, different hair, but that meant so little. Max knew that. The look of the dead was gone, but there was something new in Eleanor’s eyes. Something morphed, and impossible. Something Max was unsure if she should fear or not. 

Eleanor had tried to save Anne, Max had felt gratitude for that. Had felt an air of respect between the two of them that she hadn’t before felt. She had loved Eleanor, and Eleanor had...Max liked to believe that Eleanor cared for her, as well. But perhaps in Eleanor’s eyes Max was always beneath her. Until that moment. Until Eleanor regarded her as a partner, and for a moment Max felt that they were equal. 

They fought together when it came to getting someone to give a shit about the fact that the delivery of Jack Rackham would surely lead to disaster. Eleanor had taken Max’s advice, actually listened to her, once again, and Max had felt something. Saw the way Eleanor placed her hands on her hips, and was reminded of the woman she once knew, even if Eleanor seemed so very different from that, now. Not by clothes, nor by hair, but by eyes. 

Then Max watched her very closely as Charles Vane was hung. As Eleanor ignored Max’s advice, and hurried the trial. Watched as not a single emotion passed through them. Not regret, not worry, no concern at all for the fact that the streets could turn on them. That the streets  _ loathed  _ Eleanor’s very existence. That she was despised by so many, and that number would only soon grow. Eleanor didn’t seem to care, it didn’t seem to affect her.

Then, in the back of Max’s mind, all she could think of was Idelle. Of the fact that Idelle, of all  people, had double crossed her. Idelle who she viewed as one of her closest friends on earth. Idelle who had always been there for her. Idelle who was one of her most trusted allies. She had betrayed her. 

She assured Eleanor she was her friend, and she’d meant it, but she kept in the back of her mind how quickly friends could betray you. How quickly those you loved, those you held dear, could stab you in the back.

So badly one part of her sought for some type of revenge. For some kind of justice. Some way to make the pain go away. But she resisted. With every part of her being she resisted. Because no matter how much Idelle’s betrayal clawed so deeply at her soul, no matter how much it ripped her apart, she couldn’t allow herself to give in to it. To let her emotions take over for her. To lose one of her dearest friends to such a horrible fate. 

So she blamed the man behind the turn. Blamed him with every ounce of her being. She knew there was a snake in the grass left in Nassau, even if she hadn’t set her eyes upon him yet, but she knew one man aided Idelle, probably fueled her mutiny. She knew it to be Featherstone. He was too loyal to Jack, perhaps even loyal to Vane because of his loyalty to Jack. Not only that, but he and Idelle had become attached at the hip, she knew it to be him, and she hated him for it. 

Still, she did resist, she swallowed the anger that swelled up inside of her, because she could not lose her cool. She must stay in control at all times. To betray a friend, a former partner, was a decision not to be made in haste. What she had decided to do to Jack, to Anne, that choice had practically been taken from her. She had little say in the matter. But somehow, some way, she had say over Nassau. A voice. Even if it only seemed relevant so long as Eleanor Guthrie backed it, something the woman had seldom done as of late. Still, the streets liked her, the streets trusted her. She had power. 

As did Eleanor, once again, miraculously so. Eleanor had woven her way back into the works of Nassau, woven her way back into the way things operated. Took a seat beside the Governor, who was entranced by her as they all once were. What a chameleon Eleanor seemed to be. She changed, morphed, to everyone she was something different. Whether it be Vane, Rogers, or Max herself. Eleanor was so many things, Max sometimes worried Eleanor didn’t even know who she was.

Lately she worried that Eleanor lost sight of that completely. If she was blind to the future she’d molded for herself. Shaped with her own two hands. The streets hated her. They had always hated her, but it had grown so strong that Max feared she would no longer be able to shelter her from it. That she would be unable to protect Eleanor from being the next one hung by the loose pirates. Idelle had never cared for Eleanor, nor had Featherstone, they always saw her as the enemy, and they would continue to do so. 

Eleanor would not listen to her, and she could not shelter someone who would not listen to her. Could not change the street’s opinions of Eleanor for the better if Eleanor had no intent of allowing herself to look better to them, as Max suspected she didn’t. She had spent so long being hated, Max wondered if Eleanor had forgotten how to be loved. If she forgot what it was like to have someone who knew her actually care for her, to not have it end so woefully awful. 

Her relationship with the Governor was dangerous. It would have no good outcome, Eleanor had to know this. 

Yet, instead of remedying that, Max did perhaps one of the most foolish things she could have done, and fell in bed with Eleanor Guthrie once more. 

They had rested there together, limbs entangled, cool, wet, lips that seemed to latch onto whatever part of the body in reach. Hands that explored like it was the first time all over again, new, exciting, a smooth body that had to be mapped out. New secrets to be found. 

Max’s chest heaved once they were done, her breath finally slowed down, Eleanor’s lips at the nape of her neck, her tongue gently licked a spot, and she nibbled on it slightly. Max closed her eyes, for a moment, she almost felt content...but that was when she was reminded how quickly those moments could shatter. The hurry as they could be pulled from you without a moment of notice. That was when she felt something well inside her, choke her, beat on her chest, rip her pleasure from her. 

That was when she said, “I discovered it is Featherstone that is aiding in the chaos on the streets,” she confessed, and Eleanor stilled, her hand frozen over one of Max’s breasts. She pulled from Max’s neck, her forehead wrinkled in confusion as her eyes stared deeply into Max’s own. “Idelle told me.” Still, she wouldn’t let that thing inside her take it all. “They spend much time together, she has seen him do suspicious things, and recently he confessed it to her. Begged her for her help.”

“I thought one of your girls would have had to help him-.”

“He is close with many of the girls,” Max said. She kept her voice even, as to not give away the truth. “They will be accounted for later, but it is Featherstone that has aided in all of this. It is him who has betrayed us.” 

Eleanor pulled away from her, and her eyes flashed with something, some cruel, deep, dark emotion that twisted Max’s chest, which caught her breath in her throat. She had made a terrible mistake, she was sure of it at that moment. “That bastard,” Eleanor said under her breath, amazement still in her tone as she shook her head, rumpled blonde locks shook with it, matted by the fact Max’s hands had been tangled in it. “I should have known, he was so close to Jack...should have seen it.” 

Max slowly rose, sat down properly, before finally she made the decision to go over to Eleanor’s side of the bed where she sat, and draped her body over Eleanor’s back, wrapped her arms right underneath her breast, and kiss her neck. Continued to do so until Eleanor let out a soft breath. “It is not your fault. You do not have to worry, I have my eyes on the street.” She moved close to Eleanor’s ear, and whispered. “You can trust me.” 

Eleanor spun around, and crashed their lips together. Max didn’t know if she trusted her, doubted Eleanor did, and felt a part of that dark space within her cry out in glee. 

For justice was soon to be served. 

-.-

Idelle’s face was pale was she walked into Max’s office. Her clothing was rumpled, one breast stuck out of her corset more than the other did, her eyes looked sleepless, her makeup hardly done, and she shut the door much too loud as she turned to look at Max. It was that moment when their eyes met that Max knew that Idelle knew that she had been found out. That Max had discovered the truth of all that had happened. She saw the remorse, the sadness, all the emotions pass through Idelle’s features. Oh how far they’d come from the first time they had met. From the first time Max had set eyes upon Idelle. Idelle had seemed so confident, so indestructible. 

To look upon her then, at that moment, it hurt Max’s heart deeply to do so. Especially as Idelle approached the chair in front of Max’s desk so slowly, even as Max gestured for her to take a seat. Max had to force herself to sit upright, to look at Idelle with such a cruel, uncaring, expression on her face, to look like a businesswoman, a leader, when faced with the very image of one of her closest friends. 

Idelle slowly sat, though it lacked any grace, it was more of a stumble, and she sucked in a deep breathe, before words poured from her lips, “You know.” 

“Of course I do,” Max answered coldly, folded her hands on her desk as she leveled Idelle with an intense stare. Idelle looked away from her. Shame. For she had betrayed a friend. A friend who had done nothing but try to be good to her. “Do you really think I believed it to just be Featherstone? That I believed he could conspire all this by himself? Do you really take me for that much of a fool?”

“Oh for fuck’s sake,” Idelle cursed softly, but still wouldn’t look at her. “You know I never have.” 

“Then why?” Max demanded. “Why do this to me? After all we have been through together.” 

Idelle still wouldn’t meet her eye, her voice but an angry mutter, “The Governor is not the man we thought he was. He isn’t who he pretends to be. He hung Charles Vane in the fucking-!”

“Because of your actions.” Max had to keep cold as ice, had to show such little emotion. Idelle finally looked at her, stunned to silence, mouth slightly popped open. “Charles Vane was hung because of what you, Featherstone, and anyone else who has worked with you has done. Jack Rackham would have been handed over if not for your interference. Spain would have its gold, and we might not have yet another war on our hands. Any bloodshed, any loss, from this point forward that is on you.” 

Idelle’s breathing was labored, and she seemed to try to form words that failed her. Funny. She had never seen Idelle fail to make words. It hurt her. It did. She was her friend. Despite it all. 

She protected her friends. “That said,” she continued. “I have chosen to protect you from the consequences.” 

“Featherstone is about to-.”

“Be hung. Yes. That is unavoidable.” Eleanor had acted quickly, and this time, that dark part within Max almost rejoiced in her decision. “He has crossed the Governor. He is now to face the consequences for that action.” 

“Please-.”

“Do not beg for his survival,” Max warned her. “Not when I have just granted you your own.” Max squeezed her hands tightly, and sucked in a deep breath to will herself to continue. “You will not cross the Governor again. You will not speak to those men again. I will protect you from them. Just as I have protected you from the Governor’s men. But, if you are to cross me again…” She had to try so hard not to allow her eyes to water, for her vision to not go blurry. “This is the last time I can help you.” 

“You allowed Mapleton back,” Idelle said softly, her voice hurt. She ignored all that Max said. All that Max had done for her. She rose her head, looked Max in the eyes as she shook it. “How could you-.”

“Go,” Max demanded, her voice rose slightly, it was clipped. “Now.” 

-.- 

“The war will only become more bloody,” Eleanor confessed to her one night, as they rested in bed together, Eleanor’s breasts pressed into Max’s back, one of Eleanor’s arms throw over her, and Max gently stroked her hand. Traced the vein. “Featherstone was one of many. With him gone...I hardly think it will persuade the others away.” 

“I agree.” She was petrified, she had to force herself not to shake. Not because she feared what was to come, but she feared the little remorse she had for the fact that a man was hung, and she had been behind it all. She must as well have put the noose around his throat, and she felt such little remorse for it. In fact, part of her had felt satisfaction. “We are not just at war with Captain Flint, or John Silver, we are at war with Nassau itself.” 

“The Governor stands by my side,” Eleanor said, and Max closed her eyes tight, as though she could block out Eleanor’s words, the presence of the fact that she rested in bed with that man on other nights, despite all the danger it could bring to her. “...and you told me you will, too.”

“Yes. I will.” She would. Even if she was a fool to do so. 

“Thank you.”

-.-

Day by day, it seemed to grow stronger. As though someone had placed the noose around her own neck. She saw things in Nassau grow bloody. People she once considered friends betray her, watched them either get sent away to be hung, or have another rushed trial for all to see. Watched as the streets grew to hate not only Woodes, nor just Eleanor, but Max herself. To sit at that desk, in that chair. The sacrifices one had to make for it…

Her biggest sacrifice, inevitably, was to stand at Eleanor’s side. To protect her. Because ultimately, it was not the Governor they hated the most. Nor was it the pirates who threatened their home. It was Eleanor Guthrie. The woman who would spent some of her time in Max’s bed, where they would rest together, in moments where Max was almost certain the world around them could fade away. That they’d found their own alcove of the world that nothing else could touch. 

Not the blood on the street, nor the bodies that hung from the gallows. Nothing could touch them, not when they were in Max’s bed together. It was like when things had started. When things were so much easier. When neither of their hands were covered in as much blood as they’d been painted in. As they were soaked in. 

The darkness inside of her tore her up inside, and as she lost the streets, lost the things she loved around her that she’d tried to hold so close, as she watched a world she’d worked so hard to build get coated in blood, Max felt it begin to swallow her whole. Felt it almost impossible to deny. 

Almost as impossible to deny as Eleanor was. Even as Eleanor shared both her bed, and the bed of the Governor. Even as Eleanor was so deep within her own darkness that Max couldn’t possibly hope to save her. Eleanor with her bright blonde hair as light as the sun, with a smile that still made Max feel giddy, with arms that would wrap around her that Max never wanted to let go. Eleanor was Max’s sun, Eleanor was everything, even though Max knew Eleanor was just another thing that threatened to swallow her whole. 

Her connection to Eleanor Guthrie would lead to her destruction. 

Perhaps Eleanor’s to Max would lead to her own, as well. 

They rested in bed together one night, tired, Eleanor looked at her, and for a second it was as though the fog was cleared from her eyes. “I love you,” Eleanor said softly that evening, and Max felt her heart swell, felt her throat constrict, felt so much like a young girl. Like the same girl who had wished to hear that sentiment from Eleanor so often. 

“I have never stopped,” Max replied, and they kissed. 

They would destroy each other. They would destroy those around them. But Max had hope. She had hope one day, out of the darkness, out of the smoke, would emerge peace. Would emerge a world where they could just be. Where they could live content with one another. 

One day, she and Eleanor would find their peace.

No one deserved it more than them. 


End file.
